If someone shouts “look behind you,” tadpoles in Michael Levin’s laboratory may be ready. The tadpoles can see out of eyes growing from their tails, even though the organs aren’t directly wired to the animals’ brains, Levin and Douglas Blackiston, both of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., report online February 27 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Levin and Blackiston’s findings may help scientists better understand how the brain and body communicate, including in humans, and could be ...